There is a perception that last month the U.S. Supreme Court ended affirmative action in college admissions.
But that is not the case.
What it did was end race-conscious admissions.
Former first lady Michelle Obama put it this way, “So often we accept that money, power and privilege are perfectly acceptable forms of affirmative action, while kids growing up like I did are expected to compete when the ground is anything but level. Affirmative action will continue for those who least need it.”
Nothing the Supreme Court did June 29 keeps elite universities from continuing to give preference to the relatives of donors, those whose parents attended the institution, athletes and children of faculty.
According to briefs submitted to the Supreme Court, 43% of white students admitted to Harvard are part of these groups and 75% of them would not otherwise be admitted.
These types of breaks for the privileged should make anyone uneasy. Whether applicants should get special breaks because of the color of their skin has been debated for decades.
But one thing is certain: applicants shouldn’t get a break because they grew up in a rich family, were born to parents who attended the institution or are particularly adept at swinging a lacrosse stick.
There is no arguing that racism remains a pernicious cancer in our society. People of good will can disagree on how to rectify this wrong. But pretending that it is not there doesn’t mean it will just go away.
In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, it is time we look beyond race and ethnicity when we talk about diversity.
In 2020, California voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposition that would have ended the state’s moratorium on race-based admissions. Overwhelmingly, whites and Asian-Americans rejected the notion. Latinos split evenly. The only racial group who supported the measure were African Americans.
The measure was rejected despite California being a liberal state that overwhelmingly supported President Joe Biden during that same election.
One of the reasons racial preferences are unpopular is how Asian Americans have been adversely affected. For decades, elite schools have curtailed the number of people of Asian descent who they admit in order to add greater “balance” to the student body.
A recent Pew study found that only 23% of Asians supported race being a factor considered in college admissions.
The other factor that is seldom mentioned is that race-based admissions don’t always help those within a racial group who have been most adversely affected by racism.
For example, in 2004 the New York Times reported that while 8% of Harvard’s undergraduates were Black, perhaps as many as two-thirds of those were West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples.
Black leaders in academia such as the late Harvard law professor Lani Guinier and Henry Louis Gates Jr., of Harvard’s African and African-American studies department, have expressed concern about this.
The article noted only about one-third of the students were from families in which all four grandparents were born in the United States and were descendants of slaves. Some have argued that it is students like these, disadvantaged by the legacy of slavery, segregation, racism, poverty and inferior schools, who were intended as the principal beneficiaries of affirmative action in university admissions.
But often those youngsters have been edged out by other Black students with different stories to tell.
Academia has focused too much on race and ethnicity and not enough on life’s circumstances.
Financially struggling youngsters from ghettos, barrios and small towns are the ones most in need of a hand-up. And they are also the ones often overlooked.
The U.S. Supreme Court has said race-based admissions are no longer allowed, but that doesn’t mean such programs can’t be replaced by ones that focus on helping those from difficult economic backgrounds.
For example, I’d much rather be treated by a physician who bussed tables as an undergraduate than one who spent her leisure time on a beach.
Folks who have experienced difficulty often develop empathy, a trait missing from too many in elite fields such as medicine or law. In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling, it’s something worth pondering.
A Galesburg, Scott Reeder is a staff writer for Illinois Times. He can be reached at sreeder@illinoistimes.com.
